What if they won’t pay me?
As a live-in carer, one of the worst situations to find yourself in, is to have worked for a period of time and then to have your client or family dispute and even refuse to pay you. What to do?
This is a very tricky situation and requires diplomacy and forethought. If you work for an agency, your first choice is to contact them. You will – with every agency – have your own support person or team. Call them and explain the situation.
Often a person who pays your bill is simply overwhelmed by the total amount of your bill, so when you hand over your invoice, be sure to itemise everything. This will include things such as travel (normally a fixed maximum amount), night calls at an agreed amount per call, any food you have bought on behalf of your client, and of course, your daily fee.
Possibly the one thing that will become a point of dispute is travel costs so if you have a copy of your agreement, keep it where you can produce it if needed. If you are with an agency, make sure that you know how much you are entitled to ask for.
Night calls can soon mount up and before long your weekly wage will have increased significantly, so this can come as a shock, particularly if there are more than two calls each night. Some companies suggest you charge £7.50 a call, between 11pm and 7am, so make sure you keep a written log of all those calls.
Buying food on behalf of your client may often mean using your own money and being reimbursed. This is a tricky situation because your client may have forgotten what they asked you to buy. In this instance it is often easier to ask for a money float to be kept with the carer. All receipts and purchases are logged, and you are never owed money for food.
So, having documented and itemised all your expenses, they still won’t pay you. What do you do? After contacting your agency, you may find that they discuss the issue with the client and persuade them to pay you. This may or may not work, depending on the client and family. Sometimes the agency will reimburse you and take issue with the client, although this does not happen very often.
It is an unfortunate situation, and very distressing to find that you may not be paid for your work, without having to take your client to a small claims court to settle. If your agency leaves it up to you, you may want to seek advice from the CAB (Citizens Advice Bureau) who will inform you of your best options.
In order to reduce the incidents of your client not paying you, you may want to think about giving them your invoice weekly instead of monthly or at the end of your trip. Getting a bill for a week of expenses is not as daunting as getting one for a month, which may run to several thousands of pounds, particularly if you have paid for shopping.
If this happens to you, and the client adamantly refuses to pay you, inform your agency that you plan to leave, pack your bags and wait for them to send a replacement.
The bottom line is that no live-in carer needs to work for free, we all have bills to pay, and if it happens once, it will most likely happen again – just make sure that it does not happen to you!
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